Farshid Moussavi Architecture has just shared their winning residential proposal for the La Défense financial district to the west of Paris with us. The new 11,000 + square meter building is part of the larger urban renewal project, La Parvis Jardin de l’Arché, which links La Défense and les Terrasses de Nanterre. The design’s slender volume – which contains 7,500 sqm of residential units, 2,930 sqm of student accommodation and 1,000 sqm of retail space – is comprised of slightly rotated floor plates that produce oblique balconies and loggias. The shifting form builds upon the site’s visual connection to La Grande Axe, providing uninterrupted views down the historic boulevard. The winning project marks Moussavi’s first built work in France, as well as FMA’s first major project since the dissolution of her previous firm Foreign Office Architects with co-founder Alejandro Zaera-Polo.

More images of the winning design after the break. 

Architecture Workshop in Rome (AWR) is proposing an international architectural ideas competition, “Life Saving – First Step Against Disaster”, with the aim of developing tsunami-proof strategies that could lessen the impact of these events on human lives. Architects, engineers, designers and students, around the world, with passion and creativity, can deal with this sensitive issue. More information on the competition after the break.

As part of Little Tokyo Design Week, a recently successful event hosted by Los Angeles, offices deegan day design and Open A of Japan curated an exhibition of 40 houses from Japan and California. The goal was to highlight 20 Japanese and 20 Californian architectural practices that explore new efficiencies of scale, construction and reduced ecological impact, posing innovative possibilities for the future of small-scale residential design. They had many exciting architects participate in this exhibition, such as, Neil Denari, Greg Lynn, Wes Jones, Sou Fujimoto, Makoto Tanijiri, Mt Fuji Architects just to name a few.

Van Alen Institute, a New York-based organization dedicated to projects in public architecture, is joining the U.S. National Park Service to launch Parks for the People: A Student Competition to Reimagine America’s National Parks. Students and faculty will have a once-in-a-generation chance to creatively rethink our national parks’ connections to people, and their role as revered natural, social, and cultural destinations through design studios focusing on one of seven national parks. More information on the competition after the break.

STREET WORKS, an initiative of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA NSW), is a competition to create temporary installations that transform under-utilised public spaces into vibrant places. An exhibition of the 67 entries they received from landscape architects, architects, artists & designers from 8 countries is now on at Customs House in Sydney.

It is an exciting week in the Windy City. Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) kicked off yesterday and runs through the 16th, featuring 100 speakers in 7 days. CIW is a combination of the world’s top speakers and Chicago’s best thinkers. The result, a newly created ecosystem of innovation, exploration, and intellectual recreation. Head to CIW’s website to download the schedule and purchase tickets, or to view a webcast.

Designing in Lima, a city of marked eclecticism is more a provocation than a challenge. The vibrant movement of forms, heights, colors, reflections, textures and all kinds of elements competing for the leading role is a particularly interesting framework for XTe a+d‘s proposal for an exclusive, loft apartment building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architect: Ravnikar Potokar Arhitekturni Location: Idrija, Slovenia Competition Team: Robert Potokar, Sabina Colnar, Ajdin Bajrović, Mateja Šetina, Carlos Graca Project Team: Robert Potokar, Andrej Strehovec, Marjan Starič Interior Design Project: Andrej Strehovec, Maja Slapernik, Robert Potokar Project Area: 7,740 sqm Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Andrej Strehovec

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Celebrating 25 years of architecture and design Danish Architects 3XN have built a portfolio of work that ‘focuses on the humanity and environment at the center of its architecture.’ Their recent works include the award winning Middelfart Savings Bank Headquarters and the incredibly popular Museum of Liverpool.

Projects by 3XN that have been featured on ArchDaily include:

Bella Sky Hotel Middelfart Savings Bank Headquarters Museum of Liverpool Swedbank’s New International Headquarters Horsens Stadium Horten Headquarters Muziekgebouw Saxo Bank Tivoli Concert Hall

K

Keystone: (noun) – Key-shaped stone at the top of the arch used to open a secluded vault in Egypt containing the secret to all Architectural success. The vault may be empty, and booby trapped.

L

Light: (noun) – The illumination at the end of the tunnel which has been turned off due to lack of financing.

Linear: (noun) – The shortest distance between your ideals and your client’s pocketbook.

Lintel: (noun) – A bean-soup used to span window openings.

Loggia: (noun) – A gallery or corridor on the façade of a building, open to interpretation on one side.

{ more definitions after the break }

The Architecture Foundation is pleased to be running a new open and international competition that calls on design teams to submit proposals for urban beehives, bird/bat-boxes and planters.

The competition is being organized by The AF on behalf of inmidtown, the business improvement district for the central London areas of Holborn, Bloomsbury and St. Giles. The competition calls for submissions that offer distinctive yet functional designs that help enhance biodiversity in this urban context. It is envisaged that the winning proposals will be mass-produced and installed in a variety of sites across the inmidtown area. More information on the competition after the break.

Fundraising is now underway for a $23.9 million green makeover of Richardson Memorial Hall, the century old home of the Tulane University School of Architecture.

The renovation will include maximizing the light and airiness of the building, installing solar panels and cisterns to collect rainwater for irrigation and, possibly, plumbing use, and many other sustainable strategies. Additionally, IBM Smart Building technology will monitor and adjust the building’s water consumption, lighting and other systems to optimize their performance while lowering the building’s carbon footprint. More information on the project after the break.

Just a few days ago, Foster + Partners revealed their plans for the Kuwait International Airport, a project designed to attain a LEED Gold standing for the passenger terminal, marking the first in the world of its kind. Situated in a desert climate, the environmentally responsive building is sheltered from the sun’s harsh rays with an amazing roof canopy which offers a sense of fluidity and lightness to the terminal. ”Its design is rooted in a sense of place, responsive to the climate of one of the hottest inhabited environments on earth and inspired by local forms and materials,” explained the architects.

More images and more about the airport after the break.

MSA+PMA Architecture entered this competition in collaboration with “MAS Urban Design ETH Zürich” – successful teamwork that revealed a First-Prize Winning Project for “Cabuço de Baixo 5”. The initiative of this cooperation began with a proposal from a cohort of postgraduates who were attending the Masters Program in Advanced Studies in Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich).

Saemangum is the name for the newly reclaimed area on the west coast of Korea by the architecture and urbanism firm poly.m.ur. It has been the country’s most anticipated reclamation project of recent years and promises enormous new opportunities for cultural commercial developments in the region. The brief was to provide an exhibition space to commemorate the completion of the work and showcase the visions and plans for this new land. The concept of the design was inspired by the lost mud flat in the area as the result of reclamation. Analogous to the mud flat, the building was designed to act as a ‘living field’, which breathe environment, programs, and activities.

This video features an exclusive interview with Rem Koolhaas by BD online discussing the launch on October 6th of ‘OMA/Progress Exhibition’ at the Barbican Art Gallery. Curated and designed by Rotor, a Belguim-based collective, member Maarten Gielen and OMA founding partner Rem Koolhaas discuss the importance of this major retrospective, the stories being told, and the discoveries Rotor made after having a unique and unheard of ‘behind the scenes access’ to OMA – asking candid questions and reviewing materials from the archives of OMA offices.

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO) will host ‘Richard Meier Retrospective’ his first exhibition in Latin America beginning October 20th. The works on display will make it possible to view Meier’s design philosophy as a whole and in depth for the first time, with examples of nearly every type of work.

The retrospective includes a selection of models, original sketches, renderings, photographs, and product design. Some of the iconic projects exhibited on the show include the Smith House, The Getty Center, The Neugebauer Residence and the Jubilee Church. Other projects on view in the retrospective are well-known architectural projects such as the Perry Street Towers, the High Museum of Art, the Ara Pacis Museum, and the recently completed Arp Museum in Germany.

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Arata Isozaki and Anish Kapoor have joined forces to create a mobile concert hall that will travel across the devastated region of Higashi Nihon, brining a promise of hope to those still suffering from the earthquake of March 2011. Using music as the means to bring an uplifting message, Ark Nova will provide seating for approximately 700 spectators to watch interdisciplinary artistic projects, musical ensembles and multimedia exhibitions. The hall will serve not only as a platform for performances but also as a place to meet and find creative inspiration; thus, make a lasting contribution toward returning normalcy to the region.

More about the project, including a video clip, after the break.

The recipients of the Good Design Award 2011 were recently announced. Both yotsuya tenera and ReNOA Motosumiyoshi won the award for their design of an apartment house and the renovation of complex housing respectively. More information on both projects after the break.

Following their success in winning first prize in an international competition, the architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) have been commissioned to realize a tower block complex of ten buildings in Nanjing. The design by gmp is for a financial enterprise center on a site of about 80,000 square meters in this large eastern Chinese metropolis. The above ground gross floor space of the 120 to 200 meter high tower blocks will be about 500,000 square meters. More images and architects’ description after the break.

DesignByMany‘s latest challenge: Pop-up Retail Store sponsored by HP and media partners ArchDaily. For new Fall fashions and back-to-school shopping, ‘pop-up’ retail shops are the hottest trend. These small, temporary shops are bringing fashion and an urban edge to under-utilized and vacant spaces. This challenge is to design a quickly constructed or prefabricated, free-standing shop of no more than 200 square feet.

DesignByMany is a challenge based design technology community where users post challenges to the community along with their design source files. The community can then post responses with their own source files to solve the challenge. They can also comment on the challenge and interact with other designers throughout the process.

An additional music room or a performance hall for schools, a pleasant social space for residential apartments or a self-sufficient housing for the homeless. The “Bird’s Nest”, designed by Onat Öktem, Ziya Imren and Zeynep Öktem, can adopt itself both in content and in size to where it “perches”. By placing two-meter long units side by side, the “Bird Nest” can be elongated to the desired dimensions. Their concept was selected as Special Mention: Director’s Choice for the 2011 d3 Natural Systems international architectural design competition. More images and project description after the break.

The 2011 Curry Stone Design Prize Winners were recently announced with an official presentation ceremony to follow on November 7th at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Hsieh Ying-Chun is the Grand Prize Winner; he will receive $100,000 from the foundation with no strings attached. Hsieh is a leading Taiwanese architect who for over a decade has deployed his talents in rural areas decimated by natural disaster. Hsieh works throughout Asia, training villagers to build locally appropriate dwellings in response to devastation such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Two additional 2011 Winner Prizes, of $10,000 each, will be awarded to Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée (AAA) and FrontlineSMS. More information on the prize winners after the break.